How Can People Learn About Credit?

How are people supposed to learn about credit if the people who report it don't teach it?

-FLM

Dear FLM,

We at Experian agree that it is incredibly important to teach people about what we do, how credit works and how you can make credit a tool to help you become more financially successful.

It's why we were the first in our industry to establish a consumer education program more than 25 years ago. It's also why we started writing Ask Experian more than two decades ago and host #CreditChats on periscope and Twitter.

Through our Experian Education Ambassador program we enable our people to speak to organizations where they live and work about credit reporting and credit scoring and provide the knowledge they need to answer questions all of us get as Experian employees.

Experian also provides financial support for national financial literacy and financial inclusion efforts. Here are just a few of the organizations Experian is working with to help people understand credit, become more financially successful, and protect themselves from identity theft and credit fraud:

We are a founding member of the JumpStart Coalition for Financial Literacy. The organization and its partners encourage personal financial education requirements in our school systems. A $150,000 grant from Experian helped launch the JumpStart National Educator Conference for personal finance teachers. Celebrating its tenth year this year, the conference provides hundreds of educators with personal finance and credit education resources they can take directly back to their classrooms and school districts. An estimated 10,000 students benefit from this teacher training program annually.

LifeSmarts, a program of the National Consumers League, is a competition-based consumer knowledge and financial education program. More than 150,000 high school aged students participate every year. The program culminates with a life national competition each April during Financial Literacy Month.

Mission Asset Fund helps people who are credit invisible gain access to the traditional credit system through innovative program like its lending circles. Access to traditional credit, coupled with education, reduces the cost of financial services and opens the door to greater financial success.

A grant to Grameen America is helping women who live below poverty level establish micro-businesses, enabling them to improve their financial well-being and provide better lives for themselves and their families.

More than 220 million people have credit reports, so we have our work cut out for us. But Experian is committed to helping people increase their credit knowledge so that they can have access to the quality credit they need.

The information contained in Ask Experian is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. You should consult your own attorney or seek specific advice from a legal professional regarding your particular situation. Please understand that Experian policies change over time. Posts reflect Experian policy at the time of writing. While maintained for your information, archived posts may not reflect current Experian policy. The Ask Experian team cannot respond to each question individually. However, if your question is of interest to a wide audience of consumers, the Experian team will include it in a future post.